fratrem
by Turp7622
Summary: What if Alex's parents never died? What if they raised him? What if he had a brother? What if MI6 still blackmailed him?
1. Prologue

**I do not own Alex Rider**

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I watched him try his hardest to be normal. How can we be normal now? After all they did, the least they could have done was to give him a therapist. Alex is broken. There is no questioning that. He can barely eat and sleep, much less go to school. He wants to though; go to school I mean.

Alex Rider has always wanted to be normal. We always knew that we were different. How could we not? Being raised by a top spy calls for a very different childhood. We would sometimes go with dad if mom was busy and it was a relatively easy assignment. Dad has been deep undercover as an assassin for almost 15 years now. We only found this out recently.

Normal kids don't know 3 languages so well that they can pass as a native speaker. Normal kids haven't learned mixed martial arts since they were 6 years old. Normal kids don't get blackmailed by MI6 to do their dirty work.

Alex has always been the 'lucky' one. He has survived 9 missions from his 'Rider luck.' I think dad or Ian might have actually coined that phrase. Alex was the field agent. I was the techie. They probably would have sent me with Alex, but I have asthma. Not good on high risk missions. Dad and Ian taught both Alex and I how to hack and use technology to our benefit. I always was better at it.

When MI6 first blackmailed us, they sent Alex to the SAS and me to Mr. Smithers. Mr. Smithers and I tried our hardest to stop the manipulation and eventual breaking of my brother. It really didn't matter in the end though. We have seen horrors beyond horrors and now all Alex wants to do is to be normal.

We can't be normal! We have become used to this horrible lifestyle over this past year. How can we be normal if we can't sit in a room without knowing every way in and out? How can we be normal if we keep looking over our shoulders for a sniper or a tail? We can't! We can't be normal! Not anymore.

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 **Please R &R! I would love to know what you think!**


	2. Chapter 1

**I do not own anything you recognize.**

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"Conner? We need to go back to school shopping now, remember?" Liz said, "Alex, you need to come out of your room for a little while, okay? You two are different sizes and we need to get you new clothes for school." Honestly, we're only a year apart. Alex is older than me, but we don't act like normal siblings. We are closer than that. Experiences of terror brought us closer.

"We're coming, Liz." I responded, going from the couch to bring Alex out of our bedroom. "You're going to have to come out some time, might as well be now." I didn't expect a response. Alex hasn't said anything after our parent's death out of grief (1) .I had to be briefed instead of him, which was all good and well considering that I was in Cairo too.

"Come on big brother, at least try to be happy. It's our first real year of high school! You don't even have to repeat year 9!" He gave me a look that said ' _really? That's what you're concerned about?_ ' and sighed.

We walked down stairs and saw Sabina looking like she was about to run out of the door at any second.

"Are you okay Sabina?" I asked

"Hurry up! My friends are waiting for us! I'm going to be late and something like you eating breakfast is completely irrelevant. We need to go!" Sabina said.

"I guess we're skipping breakfast then" I said mockingly while Alex snorted.

"Come on! Their car is in front!" Sabina moaned, "We can get you like Starbucks or something."

"Okay, let's go." I said. Alex walked behind me as Liz handed us $100 to get everything. We walked out to Sabina's friend's car and got in the back. There were 2 other people already there, so we all had to squish into the back. Sabina introduced us as her foster brothers and then introduced her friends as Zach and Carrie.

Zach drove us to the mall where Sabina immediately took us straight for clothes. We met up with some of Sab's other friends there and they tried to welcome us into the group. Alex is just looking at me, completely lost. What do I do? What do I say? What do I say to kids that are 2 years older than me physically, but 10 years younger than me mentally?

"Hi...What's up?" I asked awkwardly. Some of the girls brightened at hearing me speak. I guess because of my accent, which I don't get. Sabina has a British accent too.

After talking with them for a while, one of the boys asked me," Why doesn't your brother speak?" Alex and I just looked at him in disbelief. Then, Alex gave me a look that read _'Can you believe this guy?'_ and I started laughing. Alex had this huge grin and everyone else was looking on in confusion. Sabina looked relieved that we could still smile and joke around. This was the first time that we showed amusement towards other people since Cairo.

"My brother doesn't speak because he doesn't want to. I don't know how this is any of your business." I responded, a little coldly. Alex stood behind me in silent support, confirming all I said through facial expressions. I had already decided that I didn't want to be around that boy for more than I needed to.

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We bought cargo pants, sweatshirts, long-sleeved shirts, and jeans to cover our scars. MI6 didn't exactly give us good cover stories. ' _Yes, I got this lovely gash from appendicitis, which, by the way, I've had twice!'_ Great cover stories there! No one is that sick without having a legitimate disease. The flu and appendicitis and all other little diseases they gave us were horrible excuses. I'm honestly surprised that anyone bought them, even for a little while.

What do you need for high school anyway? Do we need to bring anything crazy? Can we bring anything to protect ourselves with? Probably not. I don't think they'll take well to us if we brought in like guns and stuff in the first day. I guess we could always hide them. I don't think that either of us feel safe enough to be unarmed among hundreds of strangers.

When we finally got Sabina away from all of her friends, we went home incredibly proud of ourselves due to the fact that we made it through 3 hours of strangers without attacking or having a panic attack. We might live through school yet!

Alex and I still have issues with authority figures. I would guess that that is Blunt's fault. No authority figure ever helped us. They mostly did the opposite under the guise of helping.

We, Alex and I, went upstairs to our room to put away our new clothes and mentally prepare ourselves for the next day. School. We are actually going to be normal! Or at least as normal as we can get. We get to go to school tomorrow and we can go through the whole year without any mysterious disappearances! We can actually be sick and stay home and not have to worry about who is going to blow up our school while we aren't there. We can be teenagers for once in our actual teenage years. We don't need to save the world this year! Someone else can actually do it for us! We can be normal!

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 **(1) Ha-ha, grief…Julius Grief…. I have a warped sense of humor**

 **Please R &R!**


	3. Chapter 2

**I do not own anything mentioned**

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We really do have the Rider's luck don't we. Honestly, I just wanted to go to McDonalds! Of course a store was being robbed. Why wouldn't it be? Couldn't they have waited? My dear saint of a brother cannot possibly stand by while other people could get hurt. So now we are in a police office. Because Alex ran into a hostage situation, and completely stopped it. Extravagantly. Like he always does. He is lucky that he didn't get hurt. Maybe he did, he is not one for sharing if he is injured.

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 _Flashback_

 _We were walking out of McDonalds when we saw a group of suspicious looking people. Alex immediately started searching around for other threats when I grabbed his arm._

" _Please, let's just tell someone. It's not your job anymore. It never should have been. Just walk away." I pleaded as I tried to pull Alex in the direction of Sabina's car. He gave me the most disbelieving look that said_ 'really? It's still my job. I can't let someone be hurt.' _I mean, I get it. I really do. I still hack police records and make sure that no one can find us virtually. Alex still does his hero thing. I understand. That doesn't mean I like it or that I will let him try without a fight._

" _Alex, let's go."_

 _He pulled away and started going for the store. Not even an 'I'm sorry' glance. Well fine. I would have left him alone, but last time I did that, he went to outer space. Urgh._

 _I followed him into the store and drifted towards the CCTV camera. No evidence of any thing weird like super spy skills in teenagers. Honestly, the things I do for my brother. After making sure that we would not be recorded, I watched Alex take the potential robbers down. Big time. There was no way that they would be able to rob a store now. They didn't look like they would be getting off their backs anytime soon. We were, of course, seen by every single person in the store. I don't even know what the point of looping the tape was since there were witnesses. Oh well. The police came shortly after. Someone was smart enough to actually dial 911._

 _End Flashback_

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They held us in a cell at the police's office for a short while. Was it intimidation tactics? Were we supposed to be scared into telling them anything they wanted now? Were they giving us time to come up with a believable story? What was the point? When they took us out of the cell, they took Alex to the 4th room in the hall and me to the 2nd. I wonder how Alex's interrogation was going to go, would he just sit and stare at them? Would he actually write his side down in the notebook he always keeps in his pocket?

A policeman entered my room and stared at me for a minute. It was creepy. He looked as if he was judging my worth. The man then introduced himself as Detective Smith and started the questioning.

"what were you doing at 12:15 PM today"

"walking out of McDonald's and trying to convince my stubborn brother that not every problem has to be dealt with by him."

"Would your brother be Alex Rider and you Conner Rider?"

"Yes, why?"

"we confiscated your wallets. Now we know you didn't steal them." He said with great sarcasm, "Also because we looked you two up on our database and now we have the CIA at our door. Are you in the Witness Protection Program?"

"No but that probably would have been a smart idea when we moved here. Just talk to the CIA, they'll sort it out."

"Ok, kid." He said, then left the room and another policeman came in and led me back to my cell. I wonder if Alex is done yet. I don't want to be here any longer than needed.

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Alex was soon returned to the cell with a very disgruntled guard. I guess he must have refused to answer any questions, they probably tried to make him speak. The guard told us that our CIA liaison would be here any minute. Lo and behold, Mr. Byrne showed up and cleared us. Did one police trip really warrant a visit from the second in command of the CIA?

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Mr. Byrne drove us to the Pleasure's house, where they were probably panicking, in almost complete silence. Note the almost. When we were a couple of streets away, he asked us if we thought that the Witness Protection Program would be a good idea for us. We were technically witnesses of many things. We qualify. The catch would be that we would either leave the Pleasures, or bring them into the Witness Protection Program with us. Would that be fair to them? Either option. On one hand, they would lose their two new adopted children, of which they have been extremely excited about and have bragged to everyone they met about their new boys. On the other hand, they would have to leave their comfortable life and have to become someone totally different than who they are. They would never be able to contact their friends or family ever again. The Pleasures would have to completely cease to exist.

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 **Please R &R**


End file.
